


Zone Wars

by NoSanaNoLife



Category: IZONE (Band)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-01-25 16:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18578554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoSanaNoLife/pseuds/NoSanaNoLife
Summary: IZ*ONE's gamer line plays games to mixed results. Sakura taunts, Hyewon wins, Yena complains, and Minju just wants to be included.





	1. Racing

Yena was in the zone.

 

Palms sweaty. Eyes that hadn’t blinked in minutes. Hands tensed.

 

It was a close race. But Yena had managed to hold first for almost the entirety of the it. She had reacted to every turn beautifully, pulled off every drift with precision, and hadn’t let any other racer draft behind her.

 

It was looking good for the duck-faced woman, who had yet to win a race.

 

But before she could celebrate her victory, Yena saw someone with a bow in her peripheral vision following behind her. This racer was following Yena perfectly, hitting all of the turns and doing small hops to maximize her speed around corners. Soon, she was behind Yena, and starting to draft.

 

Miyawaki Sakura doesn’t lose to Choi Yena. The Japanese woman was determinedly watching the course. Despite Yena’s best attempts to swerve and prevent any drafting, Sakura deftly followed every movement of Yena’s. Soon enough, the girl had successfully spent enough time in Yena’s slipstream to get the boost needed to pass Yena. Even worst, Yena realized, was the item in Sakura’s hand.

 

It was a super horn.

 

Yena tried to turn away at the last minute, but Sakura, with inhumane reactions, immediately activated the super horn, hitting Yena and sending her into tumble. As Yena’s coins fell around her, she chanced a look at Sakura in the real world.

 

The Japanese beauty had the controller close to her face, and her legs were tucked underneath her chin. And most clearly: she was sporting a shit-eating grin. Yena kept that last comment to herself in case Eunbi or one of the maknaes were listening.

 

Yena had to give it to her unnie: it was a well-crafted plan. Considering how close they were to the finish, it was safe to use the super horn now since there was no chance a blue shell could approach the leader of the race fast enough. It would also destroy any counters that Yena had been holding behind her, leaving her further vulnerable to additional attacks.

 

Shaking her head, Yena could only sigh in admiration. Mario Kart, for its vaunted status as a party game, was a game one could master and optimize to minimize the role of luck. Even if it was a party game, there were players who could definitely be considered good at the game. Sakura clearly had a lot of experience.

 

But Yena was no stranger to the game either.

 

As Yena began tumbling, she threw out her ace: a red shell she had been holding onto but not behind her. Sakura, who had not been screencheating, widened her eyes comically.

 

“What? When’d you have that?”

 

Yena merely stuck her tongue out in response. Sakura, item-less, could only watch in shock as the red shell knocked her into the air. Yena, having finally reached the end of her falling animation, began accelerating forward, aiming to take Sakura’s coins on the ground in order to increase her kart’s speed while preventing Sakura from increasing her own.

 

Both women were immediately looking at their coin counts, and trying to figure out which one of them had the lead. The more coins one had, the faster their kart could move. Without any item boxes in the way, the decider would be the final turn and their final velocity.

 

Yena and Sakura eyed each other’s characters. It would come down to the final second. The fated rivals, competing to see which one would triumph in the Star Cup. Sakura refused to yield her position of gaming superiority over the younger girl, while Yena was hungry to flip the status quo. Their battles had lasted over several games, but each one was a ferocious battle that mattered to them.

 

All of the sudden, a familiar victory chime played, and Sakura and Yena both whipped their heads toward the bottom right of the screen. Player 4 had swept in and snatched first place from both of them.

 

Kang Hyewon smiled, but remained silent. There was silence for a moment, while Yena finished second and Sakura finished third. Then hell broke loose.

 

“YAH HYEWON WHAT THE FUCK. I WAS IN FIRST THE WHOLE TIME!” Yena yelled angrily.

 

“How did you even get past me?! I had seven coins!” Sakura shouted, equally enraged.

 

Hyewon simply shrugged. “I got a bullet bill in fourth place. And then Yena was too busy raging to notice me go past her.”

 

She glanced at the scoreboard and nodded happily, seeing that she had finished first in the overall cup. And she smirked seeing Yena and Sakura in second and third behind her. Reaching for the bag of chips, she took a handful of victory chips and recklessly tossed them into her mouth while the other two podium finishers sat shell-shocked.

 

Eventually, Yena stopped pouting and made eye contact with Sakura. “Hey, at least I beat Sakura!”

 

“That’s not fair! If I was playing on a pro controller like you, I would’ve handily won!”

 

“Wow, don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Yena stared at her, half amused and half shocked. “If only our fans knew that their precious angel, Sakura, was so arrogant!”

 

“I am humble,” Sakura declared. “But this performance does not accurately reflect our abilities!”

 

“Yah, you wanna go again?” Yena jokingly put her fists up.

 

“Anytime, duck!” Sakura, less jokingly, was prepared to fight. Yena, suddenly growing timid at the sight of a serious Sakura, started trying to mollify the Japanese gamer as she started ranting in Japanese.

 

Hyewon laughed at the turn of events, and turned her head to the person sitting to her right. The poor girl hadn’t said a word all four races and was glumly looking at the screen.

 

“I got eighth?” Minju despairingly wailed. “Why are we playing at 200cc? It’s too fast unnie!” Minju laid on the ground and began rolling back and forth in embarrassment.

 

Hyewon, putting more chips into her mouth, patted Minju’s butt softly. “We’ll slow it down next time. But I hope you’re ready for Sakura and Yena to make excuses.”

 

Minju sat back up, eyes shining. “Really?” Hyewon, unable to resist the revitalized twinkle in Minju’s eyes, nodded hesitatingly. “Yes please! Can we play at 100cc?! I’m the 100cc queen you know?” Hyewon only cocked an eyebrow questioningly. If Minju couldn’t hit the podium at 200cc, there was a very small chance she would outrace the three gamers at a slower pace. But Hyewon kept mum at Minju’s obvious excitement.

 

The enthusiastic girl got up to approach Yena and Sakura with this idea. The two, at this point, had devolved to comparing their controllers, and Hyewon could make out comments about stuck triggers and responsiveness of analog sticks. Minju kept walking around the pair, trying to get their attention, but Yena and Sakura were determined to not stop yelling, and the poor girl’s comments went ignored.

 

Shaking her head, Hyewon left to throw out the empty chips bag and get a new one. _Maybe I need to stick to online play._


	2. Smash Bros

“Sakura, I swear to god, stop camping in the corner like a little bitch!”

“Come and get me also bitch!”

“Unnie, are you acknowledging that you are a bitch?” Hyewon asks, interrupting Yena and Sakura’s argument. Sakura appeared flustered, and Yena gave the eldest member of their group a smirk before returning her focus to the game.

The group had gathered once more to play Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Though they liked Mario Kart more because it was simpler and allowed for more banter, the group felt they needed a break from constantly testing their relationships. At one point, Sakura had Hyewon in a headlock for a whole minute, and Minju had to get Eunbi to break them up.

Needless to say, they were on a break from that game. But it wasn’t looking like Smash was a great idea either.

Sakura screamed as her second-to-last stock was ripped away from her. The Japanese member was playing Peach, because she had seen some impressive combos on Twitter and thought that Peach must be one of the best characters in the game. But, having underestimated how much effort and practice these combos required, had switched to running away and pulling turnips to throw at her opponents.

“God damn turnips. I swear if you pull another instant-death stitch face, I’m gonna throw my controller,” Yena threatened. The duck-faced girl was playing Pikachu. Because he was cute. And yellow. She was mostly trying to chase down everyone: Yena jumped into any chance to skirmish and was spamming down-smash to hit everyone around her.

“Oh my god, that was so ridiculous last time! I didn’t even know Peach had different turnips!” Minju added. She had elected to play Greninja because…Greninja looked like a frog. Inevitably, having no idea who Greninja was or what his moves were, Minju was just running around stage trying to hit someone.

“Odds are pretty low so we’ll be fine. Just stay on top of her Yena,” Hyewon advised. She was playing Wolf, but for no particular reason. She was just playing random characters.

The group had been playing for a few hours by now, having cycled through various stages and game modes. As a result, they were privy to each other’s habits and gameplay styles. Hence why Hyewon and Yena were adamantly trying to kill Sakura, who had stolen numerous games from them by camping on a platform and throwing turnips.

Sakura’s counter strategy was to yell loudly and curse in Japanese. And continue running. The game quickly devolved into a Tom and Jerry-esque chase around the stage while Minju was just trying to figure out where her character was in between all the explosions and effects.

With everyone on their lost stock, the room suddenly went quiet. All the girls were focused on the screen below, and Sakura in particular was refusing to blink due to the fear of missing out on even a single frame of action.

Minju’s Greninja made a sudden run for Hyewon’s Wolf. Hyewon rolled around Minju, and prepared a charge attack, but then Minju simply ran off stage and Up-B’d in the wrong direction.

“W-what? I didn’t mean to go that way!” Minju wailed as she lost her last stock.

“Minju killed herself,” Hyewon nonchanlantly notifies the room, while focusing her attention on catching the fleeing Sakura.

“Minju again?!” Yena shouts, shocked. Minju simply covers her face in embarrassment.

After another minute Yena manages to sneak in an Up-smash while Sakura was focusing on Hyewon, removing her last stock as well.

“NoOoooOo!” Sakura screams while falling backward, her GameCube controller almost pulling the Switch off of the TV stand.

“Hey hey hey, don’t pull on the controller! We don’t want to break another dock!” Yena scolded. She leaned forward to push the Switch further into the middle of the stand, and Hyewon took the chance to hit Yena off-stage. “Hey! I was trying to save our console here.”

“Don’t take your eyes off the screen Yena if you don’t want to lose!” Hyewon gleefully replies.

The two play footsies for a few more moments, neither willing to commit given their high percents. Eventually, Yena tries to make a prediction and thunders in place. But Hyewon’s Wolf manages to jump around it and finish Yena off with a forward smash. The screen transitions, revealing Wolf to be the winner of the free-for-all. Hyewon lifts her fists victoriously, pro controller firmly gripped in one hand.

“Yah, Kang! You’re cheap, hitting a girl when she’s not paying attention!” Yena accuses.

“You snooze you lose.”

“Ughh, and I was so close too,” Yena bemoaned.

Minju cries and drops her joy-cons on the ground. “Can we please play with items? It’s too hard otherwise!” The youngest member’s Greninja was unable to get a single stock off the rest of the gamer line in that game.

“I’m telling you Minju,” Sakura lectured, having finally recovered from her devastating loss. “You’re playing a really hard character. Greninja has some good confirms, but the movement is super tricky. You really have to make use of the custom controls where you can. See, if you have your tilts mapped to c-stick then you can do a d-tilt out of dash…”

“Yawn! Boring!”

Sakura turned around and glared at Yena, who was pretending to aggressively rub her eyes awake.

“Pft. Like your strategy is getting you any more wins?”

Yena grinned, and put an arm around Minju. “Listen here kid,” Yena began. “You had the right idea. You gotta play with heart and feeling. All Sakura’s technical nonsense and fun-cancelling makes for a boring game. Just do what feels right. If your heart is telling you to run up and down-smash, you do it. If your instinct is to roll in shield, go for it!”

“No! The more times you shield roll in a row, the slower and more punishable your roll becomes!” Sakura interjects angrily. “You’re building bad habits! Just dash out of shield!”

“If she can’t win her way, then what’s the point of playing?”

“To win! Victory by any means possible!” Sakura declared defiantly, and Yena would’ve thought the sight was adorable if this girl wasn’t such a try-hard and sore loser.

While the two continued bickering, Minju turned to the stoic Hyewon, who was busy trying to decide her next character.

“Unnie, how are you winning so many of these games? Especially since Sakura knows all the secret techniques. Just give me a tip for the next game!” Minju was practically begging, and Hyewon quirked an eyebrow before sighing. Minju needed help, but Hyewon was loath to give away a secret to a competitor. But the girl’s puppy eyes wore Hyewon down.

“Keep track of your character better and try to avoid fighting too much. TBH…I camp like a bitch too.” Hyewon shrugged and settled on Palutena before calling out to Yena and Sakura to stop their argument and go back to playing.

Minju had nothing to say to that. But if it worked for her unnies, then it could be the technique she needs to bring her a long awaited victory. Once Sakura and Yena had come to an agreement to “settle it in Smash,” Minju gave a small fist pump to psych herself up. _Okay Minju, just pick a good character with a projectile and camp! It’s Minju’s time!_

In the next game, everyone immediately saw what Minju was doing. They teamed up on her first.


	3. Mario Party

Yena thought that the last ENOZI Cam was a huge success. The viewers loved seeing the gang play Super Mario Party together, and Yena and Hyewon had a lot of fun playing with Yuri and Chaewon. Sure, they were pretty bad at the River Rafting mode, but the sound mode went pretty well.

 

So it’d only make sense for Yena and Hyewon to go back and play the game with Sakura and Minju, right? It would be just as fun and nice as it was for ENOZI Cam, right?

 

Wrong.

 

“DON’T TAKE MY FUCKING STAR YENA!”

 

“Unnie, it’s just a game! I need the star so I can beat Hyewon!”

 

“Hyewon-unnie, how come I couldn’t steal a star when I passed by t-th-the…man on a cloud? Turtle?”

 

“It’s a Lakitu Minju. And you didn’t have enough coins. Pabo.”

 

While the Sound game was a free-for-all, it didn’t quite have the bloodthirsty competition that the normal modes allow. And between the star stealing, sabotage in the 4-player mini-games, and Minju forgetting what half the spaces did, Yena was getting a big headache.

 

“Just you wait five minutes Yena, I’m taking that star back!” Sakura’s eyes were wide and full of anger. Yena thought that it would be an appropriate move for an editor to put flames on top of Sakura’s eyebrows.

 

“You’re literally the only person who has a star right now!” Yena attempted to defend her decision. “Let me explain this again: Hyewon is in the lead! There are bonus stars in the game, and I’m pretty sure between the mini-games she’s won and the happening spaces she’s stepped on, she’s technically winning.”

 

“I don’t believe you!”

 

“WHAT?!”

 

“Yeah don’t listen to her,” Hyewon adds. She’s trying to turn us against one another.”

 

Yena turned around and stared at Hyewon in disbelief. “She’s lying unnie!”

 

“Maybe she is,” Sakura says, pissed off. “But she didn’t steal my star. This means war Choi Yena!”

 

Yena facepalmed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to have fun and play some easy mini-games that even Minju could be competitive in. Instead, they were all angry at each other, and Minju asked for clarification every turn.

 

Hyewon’s turn came, and she rolled her character specific dice block. Her character, Boo, rolled, and got minus two coins instead of a number. Meaning that she was going to be doing nothing this turn. Again.

 

“These dice blocks were such a dumb idea,” Hyewon cursed. “I’m only rolling the regular dice block from now on.”

 

“Eh? Then what’s the point of even playing your character?” Sakura asked sarcastically.

 

“I didn’t know. You’re just happy that you can only roll threes and fours. What a boring dice block.”

 

“Hey, don’t diss Princess Peach like that!”

 

“I’m not. I’m dissing you for being boring!”

 

“What?! End your turn. I’ll mess you up in the next mini-game.”

 

Yena put her face in her hands. This was a terrible idea.

 

…

 

After an hour of being at each other’s throats and raging at every mini-game, they completed 20 turns. The time came for the bonus stars. Despite their bickering and shouting for stealing stars, each member (except for Minju of course) ended up with a single star.

 

“Aish, I’m sure Kang has it if it’s a bonus star for coins or mini-games,” Yena lamented.

 

Sakura frowned and crossed her arms while leaning back. “If you hadn’t stolen my first star, I could be winning.”

 

“Unnie please let that go! I said sorry!”

 

Sakura just looked away with a loud “harrumph,” and Yena sighed and glanced towards Hyewon for help, but the same-age friend could only shrug.

 

The first bonus star was awarded to the person who moved the least spaces.

 

“Eh?” Sakura said loudly, and even Yena and Hyewon were surprised.

 

“I didn’t even know that was a bonus star,” Yena admitted.

 

And then the star was awarded to…Minju.

 

“Oh!” Minju shouted excitedly. That means I’m tied with you guys now, right?”

 

“Yeah, so whoever wins this star wins the whole thing!” Sakura explained. And suddenly everyone was sitting up, paying rapt attention to the screen. Who was it going to win? Hyewon, who had the coin lead and won the most mini-games? Yena, who had stolen her only star? Sakura, who had recovered from having her stolen? Or Minju, who had been blessed by the RNG gods with a star?

 

And the last bonus star was being awarded to the person with a specific partner. All of the girls turned their heads confused.

 

“Buddy Star?” Hyewon asked Yena, who only returned her confused face with her own. “Which buddy is it?”

 

“I think it’s random,” Yena replies.

 

All of them had secured partners, but now it was all up to faith to decide who was the final winner. And the last star was awarded to…Minju.

 

“Minju got the star?!” Yena exclaims.

 

“Minju again?!” Sakura shrieked.

 

“Me? Wait, I got two stars?” Minju asked Hyewon seriously.

 

Hyewon nodded. “Minju…I think you won.”

 

“WHAT?” The remaining three girls all shouted at once. Sure enough, the game cut into a short cutscene before unveiling that Minju’s Monty Mole had won the game. All of the members of the gamer line sat silently, soaking in this new development. Yena’s hands were covering her mouth. Sakura was holding her jaw to stop it from dropping too far. Hyewon stared blankly. And Minju had her head in her hands.

 

But realization finally dawned on the girl, and Minju leaped into the air at a speed only witnessed when Yujin was running late to school.

 

“I WON! I DID IT! OH MY GOD! I’M THE WINNER! ME! MINJU! MINJU DID IT!”

 

The other members just stared at each other in shock while Minju celebrated by dancing and running around the room. Minju had never won a game with them. But through the most unlikely set of circumstances, Minju managed to win off of two bonus stars. One of which was complete RNG and the other which rewarded Minju for barely moving during the game.

 

“S-she didn’t even win a mini-game?” Yena finally managed to spit out.

 

“What kind of hell-ish game is this?” Sakura asked.

 

“Or what kind of insane luck was that?”

 

Hyewon remained silent and unmoving.

 

“I’m finally a winner! Guys we should play another game! Please!” Minju pleads, a bright smile on her face.

 

“HEY!”

 

All the girls jumped and turned towards the door, where an irate Eunbi, wearing a face mask, was glaring at them.

 

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!”

 

A chorus of sheepish apologies came from the gamers, and Eunbi gave them one more stink-eye before shutting the door. The living room became quiet once again. Sakura, Yena, and Hyewon all stared at Minju, who was eagerly picking up her controller and smiling at them. Then, they stared at one another, and nodded simultaneously.

 

“So we’re never playing this again right?” Yena asked.

 

“Yeah.” “Definitely.” Hyewon and Sakura said at the same time.

 

“Nooo. Wait why?” Minju asked pleadingly. Instead of answering the question, Yena handed Minju the can of salt from the kitchen. As the rest of the girls left to go to sleep, Minju stared oddly at the salt.

 

“What does this mean?”


	4. New Super Mario Bros

After the last three game nights ended in fighting, the girls decided that they needed a change of pace. Okay, it was more like Sakura had lost her voice from shrieking and Eunbi had sat the group of them down and forced them to pick a game that they could play cooperatively.

So Yena went back home and came back with a classic: New Super Mario Bros. Where the goal was to reach the end of the level together. No fighting each other. If one of them succeeded, the rest would succeed. It was a perfect game for them to relax, cheer one another forwards, and have fun.

And as expected, Yena was wrong.

“Minju again?! Why are you in the bubble?! Get out!” Hyewon shouts.

“But unnie,” Minju says sadly. “Sakura-unnie keeps throwing me into the holes and off the levels! There’s nothing I can do!”

“Nuh-uh. Not true! You can definitely spin out of my hold,” Sakura explains.

“Unnie but why do you keep grabbing her?” Yena asks, confused.

It turns out that you can kill each other in this game. You could throw one another, jump on top of each other, and run ahead and force the screen to scroll forwards. And Sakura was on a bloodthirsty quest to kill all of them. Ever since she got the first game over, Sakura was determined to ensure everyone got a game over.

“Hyewon come here!” Sakura says, feigning innocent. “I have a cool trick to show you.”

Right as Sakura’s character, Luigi, grabbed Hyewon’s toad, Hyewon quickly escaped into her bubble.

“What?! Get out of there Hyewon! That’s cheating!” Sakura angrily shouts.

Hyewon shrugged in return, and made no effort to shake the Wii-mote to make her bubble move. _If this was how we get the level done, then so be it_ , she thought.

Sakura turned her attention to Yena, who was the only one actually trying to play the game and beat the level. While Yena was very patiently showing Minju how to wall jump so that she could survive longer, Sakura’s character ran over and threw Yena’s away. Yena immediately responded by wall-jumping to keep herself alive.

“Just like that,” Yena calmly told Minju, who clapped in awe. Sakura growled.

“That was so cool unnie!” Minju exclaimed. “Let me try! Sakura, throw me off again!”

“Minju, you know you can just walk off or practice on that rock over there…” Yena tried warning the younger girl, but it was too late. Sakura eagerly threw Minju off. Minju managed to get a single wall jump but fell to her death anyways. Yena facepalmed and Sakura howled in delight.

“Daebak! Did you see that unnie?” Minju pointed at the screen where her character died. “I wall-jumped!”

Yena patted the youngest member’s back. “That you did. You’ll be a pro in no time.” She then turned to Sakura. “Unnie, can you please calm down! We’re supposed to be working as a team. Remember, only one of us needs to get to the end!”

“Yeah but you keep getting to the end before us and getting all of the flag points for yourself!” Sakura accuses.

“We all collectively share points!”

“Doesn’t matter! You’re too good at this Yena! Someone needs to knock you down a peg or two!”

“THIS IS A COLLABORATIVE GAME!”

“ONLY THING I’M GONNA COLLABORATE ON IS YOUR DEATH COUNT!”

“Unnie, why am I not coming back on the screen?” Minju interrupts.

“You’re out of lives,” Hyewon nonchalantly explains, chewing on some fruit from the kitchen. “If you press 1, you go into a bubble like me and then you can survive the rest of the level without Yena or Sakura killing you.”

Minju tilted her head in confusion. “But then I’m not playing?”

“Are we really playing if we keep dying?”

“Whoa, that’s like a philosophical thing too. Why are we alive if we’re just gonna die in the end?”

“Okay, no more Twitter for you, Jaden Smith.”

Seeing that Minju was getting lost in her thoughts again, Hyewon turned to Sakura and Yena, who were busy yelling at each other about whether this game was a competitive or collaborative game. Seeing that neither was holding a controller, Hyewon popped herself out of the bubble, and made a run for the end. The screen scrolled forward, killing Yena and Sakura, who were both too distracted to notice.

Hyewon pulled off an effortless triple jump at the end to claim the top of the flagpole, earning an additional life. She sighed. Any additional 1-Ups she could claim early in the game would be worthwhile later.

Minju woke herself up, and noticed that they were back in the overworld. “Hey, we beat it!” Sakura and Yena turned to the TV in confusion, and noticed that both were missing a life each. They turned to glare at Hyewon, who pretended not to notice.

“Good job guys! We did it!” Minju cheered. “A few more levels and we’re done!”

“Minju this is world 1, there are at least seven more worlds to go,” Yena pointed out.

Hyewon put her head in her hands. Sakura grinned evilly.

_This is gonna be a long night_ , Yena thought. She glanced at Minju, who was trying to figure out why her character wasn’t moving in the overworld, not knowing that only player 1 can control the characters in the overworld. _The lava levels are gonna be hell_ _for Minju_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	5. Fortnite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Sakura carry the gamer line?

“Okay guys! We’re gonna land where I put the marker okay? When is say go, we get off the bus! Minju, please don’t forget this time!” Sakura barked out orders across the dining table, and the subject of the last comment looked up, offended.

“Unnie! You guys didn’t tell me how to jump!” Minju protested. She was wearing Sakura’s headset, despite the fact that all of the members were currently gathered in a single room. None of the girls had forced her to take it off. She looked cute anyways.

The gamer line had gathered together with new gaming laptops. The members had pooled together their variety earnings and bought PCs to expand their gaming options. Though Yena and Hyewon were hesitant to move on to PC, Sakura promised that she would carry them to a win in Fortnite. Which is how the girls found themselves seated. For the past four hours.

“Actually, the game tells you,” Hyewon replies simply. “And we’ve played like 10 rounds.”

“Yah yah, let’s not put her down before the round starts!” Yena defends Minju. The youngest looks at Yena gratefully.

“Yena-unnie, you’re the best!”

“She gave away our position last game,” Sakura said bitterly. She pinched the bridge of her nose, regretting that last game that they almost won. “We were so close. We all know most of the controls by now. This’ll be the one.”

Carrying three newbies turned out to be a greater burden than Sakura had anticipated.

“Jump!”

All of them managed to jump together. Hyewon kept an eye on Minju’s screen, making sure the girl was going straight down and not opening her glider preemptively. Sakura takes a glance around, noting a few other squads dropping in the same area.

“Sakura, there are a bunch of people around us!” Yena warns. Her panicked eyes swept across the screen.

“This is for the best,” Sakura solemnly announces. The other members stare at her. “Find some weapons, and play it safe inside the houses. We’ll group up after a bit of fighting.”

“Are you gonna hide too?” Minju asks.

“Nope. I’m gonna take them all out.”

Sakura’s eyes focus in on the screen, and the rest of the girls realize that Sakura has entered the zone. Hyewon prayed silently for anyone who got in the way.

…

“Yena, watch your back!”

“I got it! Thanks for the heads up! Can you build some defense Minju?”

“Yeah, let me finish mining this tree. Sakura, are you doing good?”

“I’m almost done setting up the flank, just keep them occupied for like 30 more seconds!”

After so many iterations, the girls were in perfect sync. Even Minju, who had to be reminded about the controls every few minutes, was contributing to the team. She had a particular affinity for building, and was always quick to build defensive structures to keep the team safe. With Yena and Hyewon sticking together and ensuring each other’s (and Minju’s) survival, Sakura had been doing some wandering to pick up kills.

“Okay, I’m going in! Rush forward!” Sakura calls out, quickly shotgunning the unsuspecting player. The rest of the girls ran forward, shooting their machine guns to pin down the others. Meanwhile, Sakura moved methodically, jumping on top of the other squad and rapidly dishing out shotgun rounds. But one of the players managed to catch on to their strategy, and focused Sakura, downing her.

“I’m down! I’m down! He’s right on top of me!” Sakura yells. “He’s reviving his friend! Quick!”

“Almost!” Yena calls out. Her character suddenly leaps into the air using a launchpad, and quickly kills the recently revived teammate. Before the other player could respond, Hyewon and Minju showed up, blasting the last player and eliminating the squad.

“Yes!” Minju calls out. “We got them!”

“Build Minju build!” Hyewon hastily calls out.

“Revive! Revive! Revive!” Sakura demands. Yena’s character rushes to revive Sakura. Minju builds defensive walls around the rest of the team while Hyewon checks out the available loot.

“Unnie, there’s a sniper. Do you want?”

“No, you keep it. Let’s stick with this strat.” Sakura, after being resurrected, quickly runs to one of the eliminated players to loot his body. “We’re so lucky he chose to help his friend instead of finishing me off. Minju, don’t forget to heal and drink the shield potions.”

“Wow daebak!” Yena says. “We’re in the top 10. We got this!”

“Don’t get cocky,” Sakura warns. “Grab what you can and run to that cliff. The circle is closing.”

…

“Unnie, unnie! Where are they?” Minju shouted, erratically flailing her mouse.

“Stay calm! They’re jumping around somewhere in this tower!” Sakura collectedly responds, creeping around near the base.

The group had made it to the final eight, meaning it was just them versus another squad. The shrinking circle had forced them to close quarters, and there was no avoiding the other team anymore. A mess of ramps and walls surrounded the girls.

“Shit!” Hyewon suddenly yelled, having been downed by an unseen assailant.

“Yah, stop cursing! You’re the reason we’re gonna get banned from VLIVE!” Yena scolds. She moves to protect Hyewon with a wall before trying to revive her. Suddenly, one of the opponents broke a protective wall. Yena reacted quickly, blasting the opponent with a shotgun and quickly downing him. She quickly dodged another shot from the downed man’s teammate, before giving chase.

“Yena, he went that way!” Hyewon directed, as her character finally died.

Yena followed the man around a corner and downed his retreating back. She went to finish him off, but was suddenly downed by a spike trap.

“No!” Yena shouted, jumping in shock. She tried to crawl away, but someone showed up and eliminated her. “Sakura-unnie, he’s on me! Two dead!”

“Minju, just stay safe behind the walls!” Sakura commanded, quickly moving to engage Yena’s killer. She masterfully jumped to avoid any direct hits, and landed her own shotgun shots, dispatching of the third member. As she finished him off, she called out to Minju. “One more! We got this!”

“IZ*ONE fighting!” Hyewon calls.

“The circle is so small unnie!” Minju yells. Suddenly, her screen is covered by a big explosion that instantly downs her. “What?! What happened? Why was there an explosion?”

“Minju got blown up!” Hyewon reports.

“Minju, again?” Sakura asks bewildered.

“Unnie, it’s a rocket launcher!” Yena calls out, having moved behind Sakura to observe her screen.

“Shush shush! I need to focus,” Sakura says. The girls crowd around Sakura as she starts climbing, trying to spot the last man. She sees a slight change in color in the bottom right corner of her screen, and she realizes that the last player is a little bit below her.

And he’s just about to fire a rocket right at her.

Minju is screaming. Yena is backseat driving. Hyewon is stuffing her face with popcorn anxiously.

Sakura builds a ramp, and leaps off of it before the last opponent could shoot the rocket. As the structure collapsed beneath her from the explosion, Sakura pulled out her shotgun. Landing behind the last man, she blasts him at pointblank range, and items fly out of the virtual corpse. A message flashed across Sakura’s screen.

#1 Victory Royale.

The group is quiet for one moment, but then all of the girls leaped into the air and started cheering. Sakura does a double fist pump, screaming. Minju and Yena are hugging. Hyewon puts down her popcorn to finish later. The girls all celebrate individually, before Yena drags them all into a group huddle, and they start jumping around in circles with their arms around one another.

“We’re the best!” Yena declares.

“I can’t believe I won! This was so hard oh my God,” Minju says, eyes wide in disbelief.

“I think my back needs a cold pack after all that carrying,” Sakura says cheekily. “But really, we all did our jobs.”

“That’s what happens when we become one,” Hyewon shrugs.

“Let’s do another round!”

A cheer of agreement started, before it was deafened by another screech.

“HEY!”

All of the girls turned fearfully, looking at Eunbi. The leader, barefaced and livid, stood demonically in front of them. Yujin and Chaewon stood fearfully behind her.

“Why are you guys so loud?” Eunbi asked menacingly. The gamer line looked around at each other waiting for someone to answer. Finally, Yena musters up the courage to answer her.

“W-we won?” Yena responded with a question. Hyewon facepalmed and Sakura tried to hide behind Minju. Eunbi’s glare intensified, and the rest of the girls flinched.

Needless to say, they no longer had access to their new gaming laptops for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading.


	6. Uno

The gamer line were all hanging out together. But for the first time, the squad was left bored. After their rambunctious Fortnite night, Eunbi had temporarily banned them from videogames for a week. All of the sudden, the girls had nothing to do. For the time being, they were gathered in a living room, watching some random movies.

“Unnie, this movie sucks,” Minju said emotionlessly. Hyewon, resting her head on Minju’s lap, had fallen asleep a few minutes into the movie. “Can we pick something else?”

“Sure,” Yena readily agrees. She lightly pushes off Sakura from her shoulder and pulls up her laptop. “Let me see if I can find any funny movies to watch.” A quick search on IMDB revealed something odd.

“Uno the Movie?” Yena asked herself. She read the reviews and saw part of the video, and suddenly an idea came to her head.

“Guys!” Yena shouted. Everyone turned to her, and Hyewon woke up. “I know what we’re gonna do today!”

…

The girls gathered in the living room to play a rousing game of Uno. It took some time to acquire the cards, and Yena and Minju had to go to at least three toy stores to find one. They would’ve all gone together, but Hyewon would’ve insisted on snacks and it was near impossible to get Sakura out of the apartment on a rest day.

And at first, the game was going fine. Yena threw a card. Minju threw a card. Sakura threw a card. And Hyewon threw a card. Eunbi had even popped in, and smiled at the sight of the girls calmly playing a game.

But as the game kept getting closer to its conclusion, tensions started occurring.

“+2 unnie.”

“Yena, I swear to god, you must be cheating. How do you get all of the +2’s?” Sakura glared at the younger girl, who simply put her hands up in surrender.

“Hey, I’m just playing the game. We can swap positions next game.”

“We really should!” Minju loudly complained. She was seated in between Hyewon and Yena, and had been on the receiving end of many of Hyewon’s cards. “Hyewon-unnie keeps bullying me!”

Hyewon absentmindedly draws cards until she finds a red one to match Yena’s +2 card. “It’s Uno Minju. I literally can’t do anything to anyone else but you.”

“Still! I came out here to have a good time, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.” Minju changes the color to blue.

“Uno!” Sakura quickly shouts. Minju, who had been too busy protesting, did not notice that she had a single card.

“Damn it!” Minju shouted.

“Minju forgot!” Sakura laughed.

“Minju again?”

“Language!” Yena chided. “Yujin might still be hanging around.” She threw down another red card.

“Hey, do you know what,” Sakura says. She plays a reverse card. “Why don’t we help Minju out then. She can get a little payback on Hyewon.”

Minju’s eyes widened at the prospect of revenge. But Yena tsk-ed instead.

“As if. You just want to get a chance at getting revenge against me!” Yena replies to Sakura’s reverse with a reverse of her own. “Here’s looking at you kid.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Hyewon asked.

Yena shrugged. “Heard it from a movie.”

Sakura looked over her hand for a moment. “You know what, I really don’t like this order.” She put down another reverse card. “I insist.”

“No no,” Yena quickly retorts. “I think you should go again.” She lays down a reverse.

“Daebak, where are all these reverses coming from?” an incredulous Minju asked.

“Hey, you know this isn’t a two player game, right?” Hyewon groaned.

Sakura finally runs out of reverses, and draws until she gets a red card. Eventually, the game concludes with Hyewon winning. Thanks to Minju continually forgetting to call uno. They play a few more games, but the appeal of Uno was quickly fading.

“I have an idea,” Yena suddenly says after Sakura wins the fifth game. “I saw it in the YouTube video. Did you know that we’re all technically playing the game wrong?”

“It’s Uno, how can you play it wrong?” Sakura asks.

“It’s true that the game ends when you get rid of all your cards, but then you’re supposed to count up the number of cards in everyone’s hands and get that many points. First to some number of points wins.”

“That sounds like math and not fun,” Minju holds her head in fear.

“Sounds interesting, let’s do it.” Hyewon decides. _As expected of the math nerd_ , Yena and Sakura think to themselves. “How many points?”

“Well in the video, they did 500. So let’s do that.”

“Isn’t that a lot of cards?”

“Nah, it’ll go by fast I’m sure.”

“Okay, let’s get it.”

…

Yena was wrong again.

The girls hadn’t realized how many points 500 was. And with each card holding a value of 1 point, completing games quickly did not nearly matter considering the obscene points needed.

“Yena-unnie, can we stop? I’m so bored.” Minju whined, fully lying down on the floor.

“N-not yet. I’m really close,” Yena replies.

“You’ve been at 450 points for like 3 games,” Hyewon states. “I haven’t even tried to win since like 8 games ago.”

“You’re not trying?!” Sakura asks angrily. “Yah, where’s your competitive spirit.”

“It died in hour two of this hellish game,” Hyewon replied nonchalantly. Her stomach grumbled loudly and she briefly pondered ordering food. Yena and Sakura were determined to not let anyone leave until the game was over.

“Unniiiiieeeee!” Minju starts throwing a mini tantrum. Sakura ignores her in favor of playing a card, leaving her with one. She paused for a moment, and noticed that not a single person was willing to contest her.

“Really? No one’s gonna say it?”

“The more games we play, the faster this will end,” Hyewon declares. “Also Yena has fallen asleep.”

Sure enough, the duck-faced girl was drooling on the floor. Sakura throws the deck box at Yena’s head, waking the girl.

“W-what? Yah! Why’d you throw that at me!”

“Pay attention! You didn’t even notice I had one card left.”

“Fine! Uno!”

“You piece of garbage, now I gotta draw more cards!”

Minju wailed into a pillow. Hyewon rolled her eyes.

“…okay you’re right this is suffering,” Yena finally admits.

“Hey,” Eunbi suddenly walked into the living room. “We have dance practice in like ten minutes so…”

Before she could even finish her words, Eunbi watched Hyewon smash her hand through the entire Uno deck and run to her room.

“I GOTTA CHANGE. SEE YOU GUYS THERE.”

Yena, Sakura, and Minju paused for a second, before all scrambling off to their rooms.

“LET’S CHANGE FAST.”

“I’M SO EXCITED FOR PRACTICE!”

“WE’LL CLEAN IT UP LATER UNNIE!”

Soon, the living room was empty save for a large pack of scattered Uno cards.

“Well that was strange. But at least they’re excited.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.


End file.
